A 29-year-old Florida man was arrested Saturday evening after trying to rob a Family Dollar store in Deltona, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said.
With a shirt wrapped around his head, Sean Torres of Daytona Beach walked into the store at Doyle and Braddock roads shortly after 8:30 p.m. and demanded money from the store clerk, Sheriff's Office spokesman Andrew Gant said.
When the clerk denied Torres' demands, he threatened to shoot the employee and reached into the back of his shorts as if he had a gun, but then he ran away without any money, Gant said.
Someone in a Sheriff's Office helicopter spotted Torres at the edge of a nearby pond. He was then seen wading through the water.
As they closed in on Torres, deputies said the man submerged himself except for his face.
"Torres tried explaining that he was 'just fishing' and that his fishing pole was in the water," Gant said. "Of the attempted robbery, he claimed, 'The guy who did it went that way.'"
The man then surrendered and trudged back to shore, saying he didn't want to be bit by a police dog, deputies said.
"Torres was taken into custody," Gant said. "While in the back of a VCSO patrol car, he repeatedly shouted and threw himself against the interior, kicking the doors, damaging the vehicle and causing it to rock."
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Investigators said the the store clerk recognized a tattoo across Torres' stomach that read "loyalty."
Torres was booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail on armed robbery and criminal mischief charges. He's being jailed in lieu of a combined $31,000 bail.
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